Last weekend I made some progress with my battery location. I'm going to be using a pair of Group 31 starting batteries for now, and then will eventually move to a pair of group 27 deep cycles if/when those die. Before you poo-poo the start batteries, they fit my budget (free) so I'm going to use them until they die.
I've had some anxiety over getting the batteries mounted and how it was all going to work. I am very inexperienced at metal fab and therefore also have insecurities about designing something that is supposed to hold my batteries in place. I also was trying to figure out how to access the batteries if I was going to go the traditional deep cycle route for maintenance if I didn't drop the $ for AGM/sealed batteries. If I dropped $400-500 for a AGM 4D, then I would have just mounted it and forgot about it.
Saturday I cut and tacked together the bottom frame and that was as far as I got. Not much progress. Saturday evening I sat down and started sketching up some ideas and had a revelation of sorts to build a box that dropped down for access, so with a little forethought I was able to get everything cut and fit up Sunday afternoon. Fortunately a work buddy was around the shop and volunteered to crank out all the finish welds for me which makes me WAY more comfortable with the structural integrity than if I had done all the welding myself. Plus, it looks way better.
So, this is the hanger on the outside of the frame rail behind the driver side door:
With the assistance of a floor jack or some other cribbing method, I will be able to pull two bolts and drop the batteries down about 12" to access terminals and vent caps as needed:
The main piece that bolts to the frame is held on with three 5/16" bolts. This size was chosen because I was able to utilize holes that were already in the frame. Drilling holes in the frame of my van doesn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy, so I chose to avoid it. At first glance, a couple 5/16" bolts seems a bit wimpy. A quick google search shows a 5/16" grade 8 bolt minimum shear value of over 6000#. That provides a pretty decent safety factor when I'm only holding 150 pounds of batteries and steel.
The final product has a couple gussets on the sides as well as a locating tab on the bottom of the holder that will bolt to the bottom of the frame rail. This will keep it from rocking back and forth and fatiguing the upper connection. the bottom of the mounts do hang down a bit from the side of the body, but it really isn't noticeable. I'll get them painted up and mounted permanently later this week after getting some cables and battery tie downs made.
In fact, make it extra heavy duty and you can use the hydraulic to lift that whole side of the van for tire changes :-)
Sportsmobile (AKA Money Pit)
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